Vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have the potential to dramatically improve the process of inspecting various inspection targets, such as bridges, electrical transmission towers, agricultural fields, buildings, antennas, and so on. For instance, a UAV may be able to access areas that would be difficult for a person to access, such as the lower surfaces of bridges, or areas close to electrical transmission towers where it would be difficult to safely fly manned aerial vehicles.
A remote camera, such as a remote camera onboard a vehicle, may be configured to capture and transmit real-time image data through a communication channel to a computing device. For example, a user (e.g., a building inspector) may use a remote camera, such as a camera on a UAV, to inspect infrastructure like a bridge or a building. The inspector may use a computing device such as a laptop, tablet, mobile phone, etc. for controlling the UAV, capturing images or video taken by the UAV, and for annotating the images or video with electronic notes that document the inspection.
Some remote cameras are configured to locally store high-resolution images and transmit a low-resolution version of the high-resolution images in real-time. Another remote camera may be configured to transmit a subset of the high-resolution images in real-time and transmit the full set of images at a later time. Although the computing device is able to receive and process, in near real-time, the low-resolution version or the subset of the high-resolution images, the computing device must wait until it is in proximity with the remote camera to download all of the locally stored high-resolution images. Accordingly, any annotations or electronic notes taken on the computing device relating to the low-resolution version or the subset of images must be manually applied at a later time to the high-resolution images.